


Trying to Find You

by Aviaries



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Mourning, Sad, before meeting Evan, canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-21 05:39:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17636969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aviaries/pseuds/Aviaries
Summary: You stole my heart and all my oxygen.My world turned into a heavy spin.My soul no longer feels the pull of yours.And I’ve lost you.She kept trying to search for him. She kept trying to find him. In the pages of those torn up books. In the marks on his walls. In the clothes with too many stains.—Cynthia Murphy mourns her son.





	Trying to Find You

You stole my heart and all my oxygen. 

My world turned into a heavy spin.

 

My soul no longer feels the pull of yours. 

 

And I’ve lost you.

 

—

 

She kept trying to search for him. She kept trying to find him. In the pages of those torn up books. In the marks on his walls. In the clothes with too many stains.

 

The world would no longer be the same without Connor Murphy. Cynthia Murphy’s world would never be the same.

 

She smiled for her friends. She attended their book clubs and endured their pity. She listened to them speak of her in hushed voices as if she were a poor, dear thing now.

 

And maybe Cynthia believed them.

 

Zoe once said that her mother had gone mad. She was crazy. Unemployed and rich and had no concept of what to do with her time so she filled it with meaningless endeavors in an effort to soothe herself.

 

At this point, Cynthia wished she had that zeal again.

 

She looked at the bedroom where her baby boy used to live. She traced along the walls where he had broken through. Fists.

 

Cynthia had hoped it was merely temperamental activity. It was the whims of a child who was far too aggressive for his age. It continued. 

 

A night came to mind. Cynthia looked at the dent in the wall just beside the dresser. 

 

There was a stinging in her eyes as she approached it gently and looked at it. Her mouth curved downwards. Her eyes couldn’t look away from the site of confrontation.

 

“Connor, if you would just  _listen to me_ ,” she had said hopefully, trying to get her son to see reason. She was begging desperately.

 

Larry had said that Connor had already ruined dinner.

 

Cynthia… she tried. She tried so hard to maintain the peace. She tried to send Connor to treatments and therapy and when one didn’t work, she would try another.

 

“You think I’m just some freak.”

 

Cynthia stopped.

 

In the present, Cynthia held up a hand almost instinctively.

 

He had never meant to hurt her. 

 

“No. No, Connor, no. I don’t think that-“

 

“ _You think I’m just some fucking freak!”_

He got mad. He didn’t notice Cynthia trying to reach out to him. Literally. A hand towards him. Until he saw it only in his peripheral and deemed it a threat. He didn’t mean to. 

 

“He didn’t mean to.”

 

Her lip trembled. Another few tears.

 

“Cynthia?”

 

Larry stood in the doorway. Probably trying to get Cynthia to have a peaceful night’s rest. If she wasn't in the living room or bedroom, she was most likely in Connor's room. In the room full of memories, slowly fading. He was fading off everything.

 

Cynthia hadn’t slept well since the incident. No. That was so basic. Since her loss. Their loss. 

 

“What didn’t he mean?”

 

Larry’s voice was full of concern. He had never heard, and Cynthia would never tell. She remained silent, and Larry, sensing her reluctance and not wanting to push her, let her be. 

 

“Come to bed,” he said. He looked tired. His grey hair was a bit messed up. 

 

Cynthia’s eyes were sad. “ I’ll be there soon.”

 

“You need to sleep.”

 

“I’ll be there in a moment.”

 

"Cynthia, please," he begged softly, but Cynthia turned her head away. He knew she would be there eventually. Hopefully. 

 

He hoped that he wouldn't find her on the floor by Connor's bed, hugging his sweater.

 

"Please sleep. We need to have the meeting with the principal tomorrow," he told her.

 

They both knew what that meant.

 

The note.

 

She nodded.

 

He left her. Reluctantly. But he did. Because that room was haunted. It was haunted by the ghost of their son.

 

Then she was alone.

 

Cynthia. In the middle of the floor. Tracing the room with her eyes. 

 

“You just think I’m some fucking freak,” he had said. 

 

And Cynthia threw up a hand as she imagined, quite vividly, the push that he gave her into that wall. She narrowly missed that dresser with the sharp edges. 

 

The walls were already weak from Connor’s relentless beating on them, but Cynthia’s weight against it, her balance having been lost, had actually put an indent right next to the closet door.

 

She was shocked.

 

“I didn’t-“

 

“I know.”

 

“Mom.”

 

It wasn’t Connor. It was Zoe. Standing in the doorway with a frown. “What’s going on?”

 

Cynthia saw her hand still up, only, not defensively. She wasn’t trying to defend, she was trying to reach out. Much like that night. The only night Connor was remotely violent in the same vicinity as her. Or at least so openly.

 

“I’m just remembering,” Cynthia said, her voice light and airy, but not from carelessness. It was light because it was hollow. It was empty. Because she missed her baby boy.

 

“I’m heading to bed. Dad told me to tell you to sleep.”

 

Cynthia nodded. 

 

Her heart pounded as she looked over the room again.

 

Every time she looked at it, she found something new. A shape. A figure. And she knew that tomorrow she would have to cry anew. Because she would wake up and remember, like a train running through her, that her son was gone.

 

She cried a bit. Almost silently. 

 

Was she the only one in mourning? 

 

It seemed that way. 

 

The only one who openly cared about the loss of her son. The bright future he had. The way he smiled, gone forever. Though, how much of that had he done lately?

 

Cynthia began walking to the door, knowing that her night would be filled with empty dreams and perhaps a cold, icy, emptiness in her. 

 

Larry would hold her as she cried. Larry would kiss her hair and try to ease her. And eventually, from exhaustion, she would sleep.

 

“I lost you. I did my best and I'm sorry. I'm sorry I wasn't enough. I'm sorry. I hope you can forgive me. And I hope,” she says to the room, filled with pictures of Connor that were left up at Cynthia’s insistence, “that I can finally find you again."


End file.
